“If this whole thing goes down the toilet, I think [Republicans] will get voted out.”

PEMBROKE, Maine — Jeremy Brown has made a living hunting scallops in unforgiving waters off the state’s far eastern tip, where doctor visits are often construed as signs of weakness.

But sometimes his back hurts. His son got sick. Like many in Maine’s coastal fishing communities, he begrudgingly accepted insurance offered to his family through the Affordable Care Act and has come to rely on a federal discount to keep it.

Now, that support may disappear for tens of thousands of families in Maine and New Hampshire.

...The Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature legislative achievement, was enacted in 2010 and GOP lawmakers have worked to kill it since. They object to the cost and consider it governmental overreach. But if the law gets uprooted without a viable replacement, Republicans could face a backlash.

“I don’t care if you’re for Obamacare or not; fix it,” said David Cousens, president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. “If this whole thing goes down the toilet, I think [Republicans] will get voted out.”

Cousens’ weather-beaten face reveals the decades he has spent on the windy waters. His wife uses the catch to make award-winning lobster rolls.

The wrap-up is also quite telling as well...presented without comment:

A crowd of fishermen showed up at the Thirsty Moose Café in Machias on a recent evening for their weekly pool league. Fish paintings lined the wall and a moose head eyed the bar.

Some of the regulars did not qualify for subsidies because the lobster season had gone well, so they opted to pay the penalty for no insurance. Others bemoaned the government’s control over their decisions.

“It should be a preference,” said Braden Alley, a 39-year-old lobstermen who could not remember his last visit to a doctor.

Alley’s wife, Dani, placed her hands over her cue stick and smiled. She signed the couple up last month for discounted insurance through the federal exchange.

“He didn’t care if we had anything,” she said. “But I did. Plus, you don’t have to pay much.”